Den of Shadows: Simple Bet
by Frozen Phoenix
Summary: To the greatest of gamblers, life is but a game. Jager spins a yarn...will you take a risk and listen? *AU*


**Notes:** I actually planned upon writing my Turquoise-themed story, but this vinaigrette happened to come about instead. The whole Tizoc Theron (who was mentioned briefly in Shattered Mirror) thing, as well as the rumor of Ather, were of my own invention, unless another novel is published which discredits them. Enjoy my little look into Jager's psyche.

**Disclaimer: **Jager and other characters mentioned within this story are the sole property of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. 

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Simple Bet 

By Frozen Phoenix 

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Life is a game. A game in which the stakes are always high and the prizes are always far and between. A single decision can prove to be either your salvation or your undoing. It is a cruel and deadly gamble and I would have it no other way. 

I am called the "Greatest of Gamblers," not because I have an affinity with such a vice, but because of the risks I have taken. Five thousand years of life and there is little I fear and almost nothing I have not done. 

As one of the oldest and most powerful of my kind, I have attracted numerous hunters fueled with the desire to kill me. But unlike many of my kind, I allowed some of them to live. For what is life without some form of amusement? Perchance you think me foolish for my methods of entertainment, but with most of the others fledglings weak in comparison to myself, a good challenge is very difficult to find. 

That fact alone makes me all the more anxious to face Risika. After three centuries she has finally attainted the power always I knew she would achieve, though whether or not she is as powerful as I am is something that remains to be seen. Fierce and deadly, with the strength of the tiger whose stripes she wears in her hair, she threatened Aubrey with the prospect of death, but settled upon branding him eternally and giving the greatest of humiliations by taking his blood. 

I told Ather that Aubrey would regret his arrogance time and again and that his fall would come at the hands of the one she claimed she could control. But my blood-sister was never one to listen to the advice of others, as her previous mistakes clearly have shown. Where she resides now, I do not know. Though I have heard whispers of her returning to our creator Silver and the both of them being in the service of Siete. 

If that is the case, I am far from staggered. Despite the length of her life, Ather has always been the weakest of us. If association with the creator of our line and the maker of all vampires provides her a means to power, then she will not hesitate to use it. 

But it is not the only rumor I have recently heard.

There are whispers of the demolished settlement Midnight being rebuilt and run the vampire Jaguar, one as vicious and cunning as his namesake. I loathe to think of Midnight, with its sadistic masters and broken mortal slaves. Slavery is outlawed in New Mayhem and with good reason. I've come in contact with former slaves and found their shattered personas to be perturbing. 

Mortals have always been of interest to me, would I have risked the wrath of a goddess for anything less? Yet to see one devoid of life while their blood is still flowing, is a troubling matter.  I have met only one other such human who shared those characteristics, but the cause of his condition remains a mystery to me. His mind is unreachable, at least to any vampire device and he is rare inclined to speak of his past. 

I've encountered him many a time, always certain that our battle would not be the final one. He is my most elusive acquaintance, though he would say otherwise. The reputation of Tizoc Theron is as the most ruthless of hunters and I will do nothing to change it. Fala has commented again and again that by letting Tizoc live, I keep the poisonous asp always at my breast. Her analogy, amusing as I find it, is nearly accurate. There may come a time when Tizoc Theron, vampire hunter and gambler in his own right, decides to unsheathe his proverbial fangs. And if it is against my Fala or those close to me, I will have no choice but to kill him. That morose thought is one that I avoid. 

For what is to be gained by fearing an uncertain future? No destiny, save for the one which we create, is ever truly fixed.  A roll of the dice, a flick of the hand…it is the risks that we take that determine our fate. And on such odds, there is no sure bet. 

~The End~


End file.
